Penn State NCAA sanctions send right messages

"Cowardice asks the question — is it safe? Expediency asks the question — is it politic? Vanity asks the question — is it popular? But conscience asks the question — is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right." — The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Too big to fail" has become a familiar phrase in the wake of the near-collapse of our economy and the rescue of financial institutions that helped make it happen.

Until recent events, culminating in Monday's announcement of devastating and well-deserved NCAA penalties, some of us might have been inclined to put Joe Paterno and Penn State Football in that same category.

Long beyond the date when Paterno should have retired, the school's leaders were too intimidated to shove him out. In a power struggle with academic officials over whether football players should have their own set of disciplinary standards, Paterno prevailed. And even after it became abundantly clear that his former top assistant was using his special status with Penn State to prey on young boys, Paterno and the university's top leaders decided that the image of Joe Paterno and Penn State Football were more important than protecting children.

Hey, this was the winningest coach in college football history, with his own statue and a spotless image. This was the athletic program that more than anything else tied alumni, family and friends — and their financial contributions — to the university, not to mention providing revenue that helped finance the college's lesser sports.

Too Big to Fail.

So big, in fact, that many Penn State die-hards and others continue to defend Paterno from criticism, even in the face of devastating evidence that he was up to his elbows in the Jerry Sandusky cover-up.

I've heard from a lot of them. I took the position from the beginning that on the basis of his own — not surprisingly, self-serving, as it turned out — statements about the events surrounding Sandusky's sexual assault on a 10-year-old boy in the Penn State locker room, Paterno couldn't be allowed to stay on as football coach. This was characterized by some critics as a rush to judgment, but I didn't need the Freeh Report to tell me that even casting Paterno's own version of the facts in the best possible terms, his one-day delay in reporting what he had been told, and his decision not to report it directly to child welfare and/or law enforcement officials or at least follow up to ensure a real investigation was conducted, was outrageous misconduct.

The Sandusky trial confirmed how heinous the former defensive coordinator's crimes were, before and after the cover-up. The Freeh Report confirmed that Paterno was directly involved in keeping Sandusky's crimes under wraps and that the university's twisted priorities betrayed an institutional sickness that went to the heart of Penn State's failed mission.

Under the circumstances, dragging away Paterno's iconic statue was inevitable. Who needed that constant reminder that when children's safety was at stake, Penn State didn't do what was right?

But as angry as I've been at what I read in the Freeh Report I still was hoping that the NCAA wouldn't shut the program down altogether, as some people were predicting. Those young men and the new team of coaches weren't the ones responsible for these horrible events. Nor were their scheduled opponents or the State College businesses that in part depend on football fans for their livelihood.

I suppose you could argue that new head coachBill O'Brienknew what he was getting into, but a lot of those kids came to State College when they had no reason to believe their program was sick. Why force them to disrupt their studies and go elsewhere if they wanted to play college football? Wrong message.

So, as devastating as I know the penalties announced Monday will be to the team's on-field success and off-field revenues, I think they made a lot of sense. A $60 million fine — essentially, one year of football revenues — diverted to an endowment for external programs preventing child sexual abuse or assisting victims. A four-year ban on postseason play and a reduction in scholarships for four years. Five years of probation. Present and incoming players left free to transfer to other schools and compete immediately.

Finally, in a blow to Joe Paterno's legacy that dwarfs the removal of the statue, the NCAA vacated 14 years of the team's victories, costing Paterno 111 wins and knocking him far down the list of winningest coaches.

For the Paterno die-hards, this may have been the worst blow of all.

But I like the messages here. The penalties, which Penn State already has accepted, redirect the Nittany Lions' financial success toward helping children. They show some compassion toward the players caught in the middle through no fault of their own. They force a fundamental reexamination of what really matters in college athletics.

And they remove any doubt about the legacy of the Joe Paterno era. He won't be remembered as the winningest coach ever or as the coach who did things the right way. At best, he'll be remembered as a successful coach who accomplished some positive things for the university he loved — the library, which he helped fund, will continue to carry his name — but who fell tragically short when his courage and his priorities were tested.